D&D General So how about alignment, eh?

[Minigiant]

For people who don't know Wrestling Alignment it's

• Babyface
• Smart Face
• Anti-Face
• Tweeners
• Anti-Heel
• Villainous Heel
• Monster Heel

Then a slider of Serious to Goofy.

Just so long as you use a kayfabe stat.

It's a skill.

 

[Oofta]

That's a bit over the top. Was the same level of description applied to more typical combat scenes? Some DMs run that way - I had one once who liked to narrate every combat hit in sometimes-gory detail...which was fine for a while but eventually became tiresome when he ran out of new ideas on how to narrate inujries and wounds....

Where The Sopranos is one I've been meaning to take a look at for some time now (I don't have HBO either but I think it's out on hard copy, and believe it or not there's a video rental place three blocks from my home).

Murder an otherwise innocent dragon in its sleep to get a whole lot of gems and gold? Yep.

I'm not a fan of the seven deadlies as moral definers either, I just threw the example in here to give a different perspective.

I don't want 'em to be saints either and, honestly, I'd get real bored real fast if they were. If they want to be evil and steal from the peasants (or each other, it's allowed) or slit the throats of captured prisoners*, who am I to stop them in the meta-game? In-game, sure, there could easily be consequences - including an alignment audit - but in-game is where the consequences should ideally stay (note that I view alignment as an in-game thing).

* - or sell them into slavery, as did a party I once ran... @Lorithen might remember that one.

I wouldn't want to be part of that game, which is not a reflection on you or anyone at the table. We all have different preferences when it comes to games and approach. What can I say? I'm not the right DM for every player and I'm not the right DM or player for every group. Which is why I'm quite open about what kind of games I run.

By the way I don't stop anyone from doing whatever they want. I'll just let them know that what they're proposing crosses a line and what the consequences will be, which in most cases is their PC becoming an NPC. As a DM I reserve the right to run the evil characters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So the murdering of the innocent for the fun of it is good behavior in your estimation?

That's rarely when this argument happens and we all know it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's the DM's world, and the characters are inhabitants of said world, and thus are a part of it. If the world (i.e. the DM) sees a character as alignment XY then that's what it is for game purposes, regardless of what the character or its player might think or want.

Put another way, if you want to be perceived as being of a given alignment then bloody well play to it, even if only vaguely and only most of the time. And there's many ways to play to each alignment, and if what you end up with is near a border then it'll reflect that way e.g. for a character who shows as somewhere on the border between CG and CN (which is probably the long-term average among al characters) I'll quietly write either Cg or Cn as its alignment; if it's played closer to pure N then it might show as cg in small letters, or whatever.

Put yet another way, if the player's play of the character says one thing and the written alignment on the sheet says another, one of those things has to change or else we're immediately into bad-faith play territory. (if you disagree with this we've nothing further to discuss; I've no time for bad-faith play or defense of such)

A DM who says "You're playing it wrong" is taking the stance that the play of the character has to change to get these two things back in synch; a DM who (like me) says "What's written on the sheet has to change" is in fact saying the player's been playing it right but has simply written the wrong letters on the character sheet.

And this is why alignment should not return for 6e.

Without it, none of this exists.

 

[uzirath]

I dropped alignment in 1990 and never looked back.

 

[Lorithen]

It's the DM's world, and the characters are inhabitants of said world, and thus are a part of it. If the world (i.e. the DM) sees a character as alignment XY then that's what it is for game purposes, regardless of what the character or its player might think or want.

Put another way, if you want to be perceived as being of a given alignment then bloody well play to it, even if only vaguely and only most of the time. And there's many ways to play to each alignment, and if what you end up with is near a border then it'll reflect that way e.g. for a character who shows as somewhere on the border between CG and CN (which is probably the long-term average among al characters) I'll quietly write either Cg or Cn as its alignment; if it's played closer to pure N then it might show as cg in small letters, or whatever.

Similarly, the other campaign we're in would likely code this as CG(CN) ["Chaotic Good with Chaotic Neutral tendencies"] or even CG(N) ["Chaotic Good with Neutral tendencies"]. Same idea.

Put yet another way, if the player's play of the character says one thing and the written alignment on the sheet says another, one of those things has to change or else we're immediately into bad-faith play territory. (if you disagree with this we've nothing further to discuss; I've no time for bad-faith play or defense of such)

A DM who says "You're playing it wrong" is taking the stance that the play of the character has to change to get these two things back in synch; a DM who (like me) says "What's written on the sheet has to change" is in fact saying the player's been playing it right but has simply written the wrong letters on the character sheet.

What Reynard mentioned above is interesting: "D&D wasn't by definition a roleplaying game in its first incarnation because they did not yet know what it was. Alignments were absolutely factions. It defined which forces of the universe you were, uh, aligned with." So, alignments are essentially a hold-over from war-game mechanics.

And also, if D&D wasn't a role-playing game at the time, then "playing personalities" wasn't on anyone's mind.

I can see why alignment has been either minimized or outright ditched in later editions.

 

[Clint_L]

And also, if D&D wasn't a role-playing game at the time, then "playing personalities" wasn't on anyone's mind.

I can see why alignment has been either minimized or outright ditched in later editions.

This. I think alignments mostly stem from folks back in the day trying to figure out what a role-playing game even was. Which makes them automatically kind of cool, even if I don't need 'em for the way I play these days.

 

[Lorithen]

I wouldn't want to be part of that game, which is not a reflection on you or anyone at the table. We all have different preferences when it comes to games and approach. What can I say? I'm not the right DM for every player and I'm not the right DM or player for every group. Which is why I'm quite open about what kind of games I run.

By the way I don't stop anyone from doing whatever they want. I'll just let them know that what they're proposing crosses a line and what the consequences will be, which in most cases is their PC becoming an NPC. As a DM I reserve the right to run the evil characters.

To give some context to what Lanefan joked about in msg #133 about the party selling prisoners into slavery (which to us modern day folk does sound evil), the culture of our characters and the country they were adventuring in his campaign was based loosely on ancient Greece, so slavery was a common part of society (but also a fading tradition). My character's previous profession was slaver, and she grew up in a culturally conservative, old-fashioned farming area, so this was just what she was used to, while ensuring that the enslaved got good placements with humane masters (remember, in Ancient Greece, even many craftspeople, tradespeople, and tutors were slaves).

Alignment-wise, my character (a Nature Cleric (homebrew class, based on the original AD&D "Druid") who worshipped the goddess Demeter) was likely close to pure Neutral, which is how I tried to play her, but of course my DM, @Lanefan, would make the decision on that.

Evil characters didn't last long in that party -- usually had less than a lifespan of a fruitfly.

 

[Gradine]

 

[Oofta]

To give some context to what Lanefan joked about in msg #133 about the party selling prisoners into slavery (which to us modern day folk does sound evil), the culture of our characters and the country they were adventuring in his campaign was based loosely on ancient Greece, so slavery was a common part of society (but also a fading tradition). My character's previous profession was slaver, and she grew up in a culturally conservative, old-fashioned farming area, so this was just what she was used, while ensuring that the enslaved got good placements with humane masters (remember, in Ancient Greece, even many craftspeople, tradespeople, and tutors were slaves).

Alignment-wise, my character (a Nature Cleric (homebrew class, based on the original AD&D "Druid") who worshipped the goddess Demeter) was likely close to pure Neutral, but of course my DM, @Lanefan, would make the decision on that. Evil characters didn't last long in that party -- usually less than a lifespan of a fruitfly.

I was just pointing out that there's nothing wrong with not aligning with preferences of other people. We all play for different reasons, have different opinions on what is okay, different goals for when we play. A lot of people enjoy playing the all evil party and if that's your jam then coolio.

But I've quit playing with groups because they were at best morally grey (in addition to quitting the group that enjoyed role playing psycopaths). Things like setting fire to a house because an enemy was in it although we had no way to know how many innocent people would also be killed since it was not a private residence. We suspected other people were inside, but it was "Ha ha, we'll just block the doors and set the house on fire!" Along with a few other things, my wife and I just decided it wasn't the group for us and that's okay.